Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior is an Australian post-apocalyptic action thriller film from 1981 directed by Australian director George Miller, this sequel to Miller's 1979 film Mad Max was a worldwide box office success that launched the career of lead actor Mel Gibson.

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[Opening narration] My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the road warrior, the man we called Max. To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel — gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded — a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice, and in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed — men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.

[Closing narration] And so began the journey north to safety, to our place in the sun. Among us we found a new leader: the man who came from the sky, the Gyro Captain. And just as Pappagallo had planned, we traveled far beyond the reach of men on machines. The juice, the precious juice was hidden in the vehicles. [fade to shot of the Feral Kid] As for me, I grew to manhood and in the fullness of time I became the leader, the Chief of the Great Northern Tribe. And the Road Warrior? That was the last we ever saw of him. He lives now only in my memories.

There has been too much violence, too much pain. None here are without sin, but I have an honorable compromise. Just walk away. Leave the pump, the oil, the gasoline, and the whole compound, and I spare your lives. Just walk away. I will give you safe passage in the wasteland. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror. I await your answer. You have one full day to decide.

What is it with you, huh? What are you looking for? Come on, Max. Everybody's looking for something. You're happy out there? Are you, eh — wandering, one day blurring into another? You're a scavenger, Max. You're a maggot. Did you know that? You're living off the corpse of the old world. Tell me your story, Max. Come on. Tell me your story. What burned you out, huh? Kill one man too many? See too many people die? Lose some family? [Max glares at him angrily] Oh, so that's it. You lost your family. That makes you something special, does it? We've all been through it in here, but we haven't given up. We're still human beings with dignity, but you? You're out there with the garbage. You're nothing!

Ya have to come, sonny. This is where we're going. [Unfolds a multi-panel scenic postcard] Paradise! Two thousand miles from here. Fresh water. Plenty of sunshine. Nothing to do but breed! [Gives Max a knowing wink]

Wez: No! No more talk! We go in! We kill! We kill them all! We kill them! We kill them! Kill them! [gasping in the Humungus's chokehold] Kill! Kill!

Humungus: Be still, my dog of war. I understand your pain. We've all lost someone we love, but we do it my way! We do it my way. Fear is our ally. The gasoline will be ours. Then you shall have your revenge.

Interestingly enough, there's quite a well-known stunt from [“The Road Warrior”] where a guy hits a bike and flips. That one, believe it or not, was Guy Norris. He was 21, going for a world record. And Guy Norris, all these years later, is the second-unit director and the stunt coordinator on this movie. His two sons are on this movie as War Boys.

What happened on that stunt was Guy, even though he had kneepads as part of his costume, he clipped the vehicle and it caused him to flip. And when he knew he was going to flip he just relaxed his body and did that. He would've broken his femur, except he didn't tell us that he'd broken it about two months before and he had a pin in it. And the pin bent — they wrote it up in a medical magazine about how this pin bent, and what happened. But there weren't any serious injuries on any of the “Mad Max” films — touch wood — but only because we were very, very obsessed with safety.